Carl F. Bucherer Manero Tourbillon Double Peripheral

Founded in 1988 in Lucerne, Carl F. Bucherer remains one of the few Swiss watch manufacturers still in family ownership. Without the pressures of group dynamics or the watchful eyes of anxious shareholders, the company has the time to research and develop gems of time such as the new Manero Tourbillon DoublePeripheral which boasts a peripheral rotor and a “floating” tourbillon.

Representing a world first, the elegant new watch by the brand houses the manufacture CFB T3000 calibre, which combines a peripheral automatic winding system with a rotor that moves around the edge of the movement, and a peripherally-mounted tourbillon – both specialities of the house. The tourbillon also features a stop-seconds function for accurate setting of the time and rotates on its axis once every minute, allowing it to act as a seconds hand.

While a traditional tourbillon is mounted to both the main plate and the bridge of the balance wheel, allowing it to rotate on a single axis, a flying tourbillon is fixed only to the main plate so that it can be viewed freely from above. But the CFB T3000 calibre takes visibility a step further, allowing the regulator to be viewed from both above and below thanks to the tourbillon cage being mounted peripherally. The cage is supported by three ball-bearings that make the tourbillon appear to float within the watch case. This feat of technology takes pride of place on the dial, being placed at 12 o’clock.

In a further feat of contemporary high-end watchmaking, the pallet and escape wheel are made from silicon, negating the impact of magnetic fields and reducing friction, hence increasing the power reserve to 65 hours. The view of the COSC-certified movement through the sapphire caseback is unhindered by the placement of a traditional oscillating weight and the CFB T3000 joins a family of Carl F. Bucherer peripheral-rotor movements that includes the CFB A1000 from 2008 and 2016’s CFB A2000.

All of this mechanical awesomeness is housed within a 43mm rose-gold case featuring a slight bulge at 3 o’clock where the crown is situated – a signature of the Manero collection. A silver-coloured dial with applied gold indexes and hands keeps everything simple and legible, allowing the tourbillon to take centre stage.